From our Olympics correspondent in Paris – The atmosphere in Paris’s ornate Grand Palais was electric during the final night of fencing in the 2024 Olympics, with Japan cutting down both the Italian and French teams in men’s foil, condemning them to silver and bronze respectively.
Watching fencing on a screen, it can sometimes be hard to remember that you’re looking at a sword fight. The fencers edge towards one another, their tether stretching out behind them, faces hidden behind a mask as expressionless as the compound eye of an insect. Dressed in spotless white, they put you less in mind of musketeers than they do astronauts, or surgeons, their blades precise as scalpels in their hands.
But when those steel swords meet with a clatter in the vast exhibition hall of Paris’s Grand Palais on Sunday, an electric current seems to run through the crowd. It’s the final fencing event of the Paris Olympics, and the theater is packed with French fans eager to see the men’s foil team take away a medal.
Originally designed as a practice blade, the foil is a sword only by convention. From high up in the stands, the thin blades twist and shiver like live wires, barely visible except when they catch the light. Between points, the fencers bend them effortlessly in their hands or under their heels, alert to every millimetre they’ve twisted off true.
Gone are the elaborate Italian hilts of a more courtly age; now, the swords sport ergonomic pistol grips, allowing each fencer minute control over the point of their blade. Unlike the heavier sabre or epee, blows with the foil are only counted if they land between gullet and groin; that is to say, every strike is aimed at the belly, or the heart.
Tonight, the finals are pitting the Japanese team against the Italians, with the French fighting the US team for bronze. The Japanese are flying high – after a tense moment when the French seemed to be pulling even in the quarter-finals, they launched a series of lightning strikes against their beleaguered opponents, with Takahiro Shikine actually leaping off the piste to plunge his blade down into his rival’s breast for the bout’s final blow.
It’s an awkward loss for the French. Celebrating alongside the Japanese is Erwann Le Péchoux, who won gold with the French team in Tokyo before joining the Japanese as their coach. Speaking to reporters after the match, the former medallist said he was torn about the victory.
“I feel bad for the guys, it’s not what I wanted for them,” he said. “But here we are, I’m doing my job and we shouldn’t forget that my first choice was to stay in France. I was told that I wasn’t qualified enough. And another team put their trust in me and called on me.”
Built over three years for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, the Grand Palais’ main hall is a cavernous expanse of stone and brushed green steel supporting a vast glass dome. The upper reaches of the room have been swathed in white cloth for the Games, the metal lattice casting spider-web shadows across the hall. As twilight approaches, hundreds of spotlights scatter scintillating lights across the canvas.
You couldn’t really ask for a better setting for a sport that seems ripped from another century. In their crisp white culottes and clinging stockings, the fencers blend in effortlessly with their ornate surroundings. Only the Nikes give the game away.
They might as well lean into it. As the finals begin, the fencers sweep down the turn-of-the-century staircase that dominates the room, their swords already in hand.
The night’s first fencers meet in the middle of the piste and touch the ends of their swords against each other’s chests, testing the electronic circuit that runs from the tip through to the tether trailing behind them. At a word from the referee, the duel begins.
The crowd is out for blood – throughout the night, tentative chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” are drowned out by thunderous French battle-cries, as well as a climactic rendition of La Marseillaise to make sure the Americans have got the message.
Having fallen behind in the first few exchanges, the French quickly regain their momentum. Lifted by the furious show of support from the crowd, they break through the Americans' guard again and again. Finally, Maxime Pauty secures the bronze with a blistering lunge, slipping under his opponent's sword to bend his blade against his chest. He drops to his knees, weeping, overcome by victory.
A bit of history: in 1993, a rivet came tumbling out of the elaborate metalwork of the Grand Palais in the middle of an exhibition, falling at near-terminal velocity and ushering in more than a decade of urgent renovations. As the whole hall rattles beneath the French supporters' stamping feet, you can’t help but wonder if there’s a screw coming loose somewhere in the ironmongery overhead.
The final match between Japan and Italy is more sedate. The crowd is less invested, and the Japanese are peerless. They take the lead early, and don't let up. Kazuki Iimura pierces his opponent with one final thrust, and the duel is won.
"We still can't believe it, it means a lot," Japan's Kyosuke Matsuyama told reporters after the fight.
"I hope many Japanese can get a gold medal in fencing in future Olympics. We were focused in every moment, in every match."
